Best DNP Programs

San Francisco metro

Best DNP Programs In San Francisco 2026

The most expensive accredited field on this site: nothing here publishes a rate under $50,000, and the one public institution publishes no rate at all.
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Key Takeaways

  1. 1

    Price will not narrow this list. The published in-state rates here sit inside a band of roughly 1.2 times, which is tight for a metro. That pushes the decision onto track, cohort size and who arranges the clinical placement.

  2. 2

    The cheapest option here is private. 1 of the 3 are public, but the lowest published rate is not one of them. A private institution charges the same wherever you live, which inverts the residency arithmetic most metro pages rest on.

  3. 3

    Output is concentrated in one school. Samuel Merritt University conferred 46 of the 78 DNP awards recorded across this metro, with University of California, San Francisco next at 24. A number that lopsided says where the cohorts and the placement relationships are, which a ranking position does not.

  4. 4

    1 of 3 reach you at a distance. That many carry the federal distance-education flag, which covers taught content and never the supervised practice hours. Ask for the number of on-campus days and the months they fall in.

Nothing Here Publishes A Rate Under $50,000, And The Public Option Publishes None

Samuel Merritt University publishes $50,138 a year and the University of San Francisco $59,950. Those are the two published rates in this metro, and the lower of them is higher than the LOWEST rate in any other metro guide on this site. The next dearest floor is Boston at $15,278. Whatever else is true of studying here, it is not going to be the cheap option.

The third institution is the University of California, San Francisco, which conferred 24 doctorates and reports no published graduate tuition to the federal survey at all. That is why it appears further down this page without a score rather than in the ranked table: this site scores on published figures and does not impute a missing one. It is also the only public institution in the metro, so the option most likely to be affordable is the one whose price cannot be read here. Ask the registrar directly.

One thing the price does not measure is choice of track. The University of San Francisco runs three — family nurse practitioner, psychiatric-mental health and the general practice doctorate — against one each at the other two. In a field of three institutions that is where the actual range of programs sits, and it belongs to the most expensive of them.

How This Ranking Is Scored

Three published figures, weighted. Scores are relative to the 2 institutions on this page and to nothing else.

  1. 50%

    Published in-state graduate tuition

    Institution-level. Published annual graduate tuition, not a DNP per-credit rate and not net of aid.

  2. 35%

    Established program

    Program-level. DNP conferrals in this CIP and award level in the reporting year, saturating at 25. Above that a program scores full marks and gains nothing further for size.

  3. 15%

    Institution-wide undergraduate completion

    Institution-level and undergraduate. The IPEDS 150%-of-normal-time rate for first-time, full-time bachelor's students.

Nothing is imputed. A program that does not publish a figure is scored on the ones it does publish, with the remaining weights renormalized; below 2 published figures it is listed without a position rather than ranked on a single number. Accreditation is a condition of appearing at all, not a factor that earns points. What the rubric cannot see.

Accredited Schools In The San Francisco Metro, Ranked

Ordered on the same three published figures the state guides use: in-state tuition, annual conferrals and completion rate. One row per institution, not per federal filing.

# Program In-state tuition DNP awards UG completion Score of 100
1 of 2 Samuel Merritt University Oakland, CA · Private nonprofit · offered online $50,138 46 Not published 100
2 of 2 University of San Francisco San Francisco, CA · Private nonprofit $59,950 8 70% 0

Listed Without A Score

Accredited and in the metro, but publishing too few of the three figures to place on the table above. The gap is in what the institution reports, not in what it teaches.

What This Guide Counts As The San Francisco Metro

This guide follows the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont metropolitan statistical area. Two institutions are in San Francisco and Samuel Merritt University is across the bay in Oakland. San Jose is excluded and it is the exclusion most likely to surprise: it is a separate metropolitan area in the census delineation even though the region is spoken of as one.

Municipalities Included

  • San Francisco, CA
  • Oakland, CA

Deliberately Not Included

  • San Jose, CA The San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara metro, separately delineated, despite sitting in the same commercial region.
  • Fremont, CA Named in the metro title, but no institution in the accredited dataset reports it as its city.
  • Los Angeles and San Diego, CA The other end of the state. Los Angeles has its own guide.

The Best 2 DNP Programs In San Francisco, Ranked

Every scored institution above, with what it publishes and what it does not.

Ranked 1 of 2

Samuel Merritt University

Oakland, CA

100 of 100
  • CCNE-accredited
  • Private nonprofit
  • Doctorate (other)
  • Offered online

Samuel Merritt is a health sciences university rather than a campus with a nursing school attached, and its doctoral output against its size is among the highest in the country: about 1,900 students in total and forty-six nursing doctorates a year. The routes are counted in units rather than years. The post-master’s doctorate needs a minimum of 30 semester units and the family nurse practitioner doctorate needs 65, so what you already hold roughly halves the work. Graduation also turns on finishing the clinical hours set for your specialty track rather than one figure for the whole degree, which means the family and psychiatric mental health routes carry different totals and the track page is where those live.

In-State Tuition
$50,138
Out-Of-State
$50,138
DNP Awards
46

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 100
  • Established program 100

Visit Samuel Merritt University →

Ranked 2 of 2

University of San Francisco

San Francisco, CA

0 of 100
  • CCNE-accredited
  • Private nonprofit
  • Doctorate (professional)

3 DNP tracks at this institution, Family nurse practitioner, Psychiatric-mental health NP, Registered nursing (general). Ranked once, on the largest.

San Francisco runs its doctorate at three locations, San Francisco, Sacramento and Orange County, which is unusual for a private university and means a California applicant may have a campus within reach without moving. Two clinical routes run, family practice and psychiatric mental health, and both are filed federally as campus programs rather than distance ones, so the location question here is real rather than nominal. The regular application deadline is 15 May across all three sites. Tuition sits near the top of the range on this site, which makes the funding conversation matter more than at most places, and worth having before the application one.

In-State Tuition
$59,950
Out-Of-State
$59,950
DNP Awards
8
UG Completion
70%

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 0
  • Established program 0

Visit University of San Francisco →

Choosing A DNP Program In San Francisco

What studying in the San Francisco metro changes. The questions that apply wherever you study are on the national ranking page.

A field of 3 is small enough to contact all of it

Samuel Merritt University, University of California-San Francisco and University of San Francisco are the accredited doctorates in the San Francisco metro, which is few enough that writing to every one of them is a morning's work rather than a project. It is also the fastest way to learn what no program page prints: who secures your clinical placement, what the school charges if a doctoral project runs past its term, and which tracks are open to new applicants this cycle. Against a field this size, a reply beats a rubric.

The California board of nursing decides the license, not the diploma

No doctorate confers authority to practice or prescribe. That authority comes from an advanced practice license the state issues and the national certification behind it, which is why a DNP-prepared and a master's-prepared nurse practitioner on the same license prescribe the same things. What varies between states is the licensure requirement itself, so take it from the board rather than from a program page, and take it early: several programs want an active license in the state where your practicum will happen rather than wherever you hold one now, and licensure by endorsement runs to months. What the degree does and does not grant sets out the distinction.

Samuel Merritt University carries the distance flag

1 of the 3 measured institutions in the San Francisco metro carry it. That flag records only that taught content can be delivered at a distance. It says nothing about campus days, and nothing about the supervised practice hours, which happen in a building with a preceptor present wherever you enroll. Ask for the number of on-campus days and the months they fall in, because that is what you hold against a roster. Online DNP programs ranks the distance-flagged field nationally.

A metro is a commute, and California is the field

This page covers the institutions inside the San Francisco area because a campus you can reach on a weekday is a different proposition from one you cannot. It is a narrower field than the one you are actually choosing from: DNP programs in California carries every accredited institution in the state, and for a program you would attend at a distance the metro boundary means nothing at all.

Who Licenses You In The San Francisco Metro

Practice environment from AANP’s own state fact sheets, read 2026-09-08; AANP last revised the classification 05/2026. Boards from the NCSBN member directory, read 2026-09-08.

California
Restricted Practice
California Board of Registered Nursing

Every institution on this page sits in California, so one board licenses all of them and AANP classifies the jurisdiction as restricted practice. The school does not grant practice authority and never has; the license and the certification behind it do.

The board detail, the full AANP definition and the license verification route are on the state guide: DNP programs in California . AANP is reading state statute rather than issuing a federal designation, and statutes move each legislative session, so confirm with the board before you rely on it.

What The Work Pays In The San Francisco Metro

BLS OEWS, May 2025, metropolitan area cut for San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA, read 2026-09-10. BLS classifies by occupation, not by credential: there is no DNP wage series, and every figure here covers everyone in the occupation regardless of which degree they hold.

OccupationMedian, San Francisco metroEmployedNational median
Nurse Practitioners29-1171$219,0803,110$132,300
Registered Nurses29-1141$186,61041,750$97,550
Nursing Instructors and Teachers, Postsecondary25-1072$84,730700$80,250

One occupation is missing from the table above: nurse anesthetists. BLS suppresses metropolitan cells independently per occupation, usually where the employed count is too small to publish without identifying an employer, so a blank means the figure was not released for this metro rather than that nobody does the work here. Nationally the median is $236,590.

Nurse practitioners in the San Francisco metro have a median of $219,080, across about 3,110 of them, $86,780 above the national $132,300.

A median is the midpoint of what people in the occupation are paid, so half earn less and half earn more; it is not a starting salary and not an offer. The metropolitan cut is a different survey area from the state one, so these figures will not reconcile with the state page and are not meant to. How BLS defines these areas .

Shortage Areas, And The Debt Relief Attached To Them

HRSA designated primary-care Health Professional Shortage Areas, read 2026-09-08. These are state counts, not metro ones.

California, designated areas
576
California, of those rural
232

These figures cover California in full rather than the San Francisco metro specifically. HRSA publishes designations at the level of the individual area, and rolling them into a metro needs a county crosswalk this guide does not hold, so the state count is what is shown and it is shown as a state count. What follows from it still applies here, because eligibility never attached to a jurisdiction in the first place.

Both federal loan repayment routes open to advanced practice nurses require working at an approved site inside a designated area, and the area’s score sets funding priority when applications outrun the money: Nurse Corps Loan Repayment Program and NHSC Loan Repayment Program. HPSA primary-care scores run 0-25; funding priority for loan repayment follows the score.

In a metro that is mostly urban the practical consequence is that eligible sites are a smaller share of the employers you are likely to interview with than the state count suggests, and they are usually federally qualified health centers, public hospital systems and university clinics rather than private practices. Whether a particular employer counts is settled by the program rather than by the designation, so check the site before you take the job.

HRSA’s shortage-area data portal maps the designations to the address. Paying for a DNP covers the routes that do not depend on where you practice, and the state guide breaks the designations down further: California.

Studying From Outside The San Francisco Metro

1 of the 3 accredited doctorates in the San Francisco metro carry the federal distance-education flag, which leaves most of the local field expecting you in the room and makes an out-of-state program a real comparison rather than a fallback. Either way it turns on one thing this site cannot answer for you.

Authority to enroll a distance student is set per institution and per state, and the federal flag this page counts records delivery rather than permission, so only the school can answer it. Ask two things before tuition enters the conversation: whether the program can enroll a resident of the San Francisco metro this cycle, and whether it will place you for supervised clinical hours near where you live.

Which San Francisco Option Fits Your Situation

Each of these routes to a published figure or a named institution. None is a recommendation, and none is a statement about whether a school will admit you.

If you already hold an advanced practice credential: Samuel Merritt University

Samuel Merritt University publishes a post-master's route, the shorter way in when your master's already carries supervised hours. Ask how many transfer; the ceilings differ sharply.

If you cannot relocate: Samuel Merritt University

Samuel Merritt University carries the federal distance-education flag. The flag covers taught content only. Supervised hours still happen near you, and campus days are the school's to set, so ask for the count and the months.

If residency is out of reach: the private rate does not depend on it

A private institution charges one figure wherever you live, so without residency the comparison is against the out-of-state public rate. In San Francisco the cheapest published rate in the state belongs to one of its 2 private institutions.

What The Figures On This Page Are

Tuition is the institution’s published annual graduate rate, not a per-credit price and not a program total. Awards are conferrals in the reporting year. Completion is the federal undergraduate rate, the weakest input in the model, and no federal series reports DNP completion. Wages are the metropolitan cut of the federal survey, a different survey area from the state one. How this site scores programs sets out each input and its weight in full.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many DNP programs are there in San Francisco?

3 institutions in the San Francisco metro hold CCNE accreditation for the Doctor of Nursing Practice. This guide counts the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA metropolitan statistical area rather than the city limits, so the figure includes institutions in 2 municipalities.

What counts as the San Francisco metro on this page?

The San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA metropolitan statistical area. In practice that means these municipalities: San Francisco, CA; Oakland, CA. Places deliberately left out are listed on this page with the reason.

Is it cheaper to study for a DNP in San Francisco than online?

Neither is reliably cheaper. Published in-state tuition at a public institution is usually the lowest figure available to someone who qualifies for it, and distance programs charge a single rate to everyone regardless of where they live. Which comes out lower depends entirely on whether you hold in-state status somewhere, so compare the published rates rather than the format.

Do these figures include fees and clinical costs?

No. Every tuition figure on this page is the published rate an institution reports to the federal government, which excludes fees, health insurance, textbooks and the travel a clinical placement can require. Treat it as a floor for comparison between institutions rather than a total cost of attendance.

Related Pages

Sources

  1. 1 CCNE Directory Of Accredited Programs Which institutions hold accreditation.
  2. 2 IPEDS Published tuition, conferrals and completion.
  3. 3 Metro Definition The San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA metropolitan statistical area, rolled up to the municipalities listed above. Institutions are matched on city and state.

Every federal figure on this site is read from the administering agency’s own page, never from a secondary aggregator, and the reading date is recorded beside it.

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